<p>"According to the survey, students graduating from colleges in Delaware had the highest average debt in 2012, at $33,649. In fact, six of the ten states with the highest average student loan debt amounts were in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, while the remaining four are Midwestern and Great Lakes states." </p>
<p>I wonder how those lists of average student loan debt by state correlate with the net price calculator results for each state’s public universities for typical household incomes in those states.</p>
<p>It is not particularly surprising that California is a low debt state while Pennsylvania is a high debt state, given the financial aid policies of each state’s public universities with respect to their in-state students (California = good in-state financial aid and option to start at cheap good community colleges; Pennsylvania = poor in-state financial aid).</p>
<p>Really interesting link in that story to an interactive map that lists costs and avg. indebtedness by school …</p>
<p>I can sympathize with the fear associated with repaying those loans, if it weren’t for Uncle Sam paying my way through school now; I would have probably never considered coming back to get my degree. With tuition on an upward climb for the foreseeable future, it’s at the point where the costs start outweighing the rewards.</p>
<p>Our tuition is much higher in MI than in most other states so that doesn’t surprise me. We also have zero state aid. Pennsylvania is one that is also very high and is also on the list. I don’t know if there is any state aid there. </p>
<p>I know CA has programs for low-income students to assist them with cost. I wonder how many of the other states on the low-loan lists have similar state programs.</p>
<p>ETA: New Mexico does at least. They actually have a really nice tuition program. I had never heard of it.</p>
<p>Is that really so large?
It seems to be roughly the equivalent of four or five years of govt backed loans.( or the cost of a new Prius)</p>
<p>Perhaps they should have taken a few years off after high school, if they felt pressured to take on debt they couldn’t manage.</p>
<p>Ek, most 18 year olds cannot conceptualize debt to the tune of ~30k. It’s just numbers. They didn’t know that it wasn’t debt they “couldn’t manage”</p>
<p>It’s easy to say “oh, just take a few years off” And do what? Work a minimum wage job? Here in MI, even assuming you go to CC, it would take several years to save up enough to graduate debt free. Plus, it’s hard for even those WITH college degrees to find jobs, let alone without.</p>
<p>The generation that is now parents of high school seniors went to college during a time when a high school graduate could find a job that paid living expenses on his/her own (not in his/her parent’s house) and cover the then-low tuition and fees of an in-state public university with low or no student loan debt (“work one’s way through college”), even when receiving no financial aid grants, scholarships, or money from parents. Some parents may not have looked closely enough at the worse job prospects for high school graduates and the much higher college costs today in assuming that their kids can “work their way through college” as easily as their generation did.</p>
<p>The more shocking sentence in that piece was the one mentioning the debt difference between schools (not states). The average debt ranges for various schools were $4500 to nearly $50,000.</p>
<p>The schools that have students with average debts of nearly $50k are the ones that really should be exposed. To me, an average of nearly $50k suggests that there are going to a good number of students from those schools with more than $60-70k in debt. And, I doubt these are schools that are graduating a bunch of kids who are immediately hired into highly paid positions.</p>
<p>Does the data for publics only include the info for instate students? If not, that data should be indicated as well. I don’t really feel bad for students who go to OOS publics and accumulate excessive debt that wouldn’t be needed if they stayed instate.</p>
<p>I live in one of the top debt states, and sure enough, we have no state fin aid for in-state publics and small grants available for in-state privates. I know the legislator who wrote the state’s fin aid bill (he’s over 100 now!). The idea was to use this small grant to make the privates more comparable, and it worked for a long time. State schools were cheap (you really could work your way through) and private schools flourished. Then, the costs of colleges started to skyrocket and that little grant does very little in the way of making the privates more affordable. </p>
<p>The state schools are still pretty low cost compared to in-state costs in other states, but we don’t have many. For much of the state, there isn’t one within commuting distance, so living at home isn’t an option. With living expenses factored in, there’s no way they’re affordable to a kid whose only cash for college is a full Pell and direct loan. I get why my state is at the top of the debt pile. </p>
<p>While I’d say $29k in debt is near the max of what a new grad can handle, I don’t think it’s a soul-crushing, live-in-your-parent’s-basement amount.</p>
<p>$27,000 in debt is four years of maximum Stafford loans.
If they have more than that, then they are taking out private loans, have small Perkins or are in school for longer than 4 yrs full time.</p>
<p>They aren’t taking out private loans without a cosigner, and they also can’t take out Stafford loans without all the rigamarole that is required to insure borrowers understand their obligations.</p>
<p>I do agree they should crack down on schools where students can’t graduate in 4 yrs because they can’t get classes but they also need to remind students that when they keep changing their major, they are amassing more debt.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should require all high school grads to live in the real world for a yr or two after high school graduation so they have a better understanding of what that entails.
I’d also like to see stats on average debt including credit cards and auto loans as those couldn’t possibly help the situation.</p>
<p>Perhaps they can include a class in consumer debt/ math in high school?</p>
<p>A number of items in the article lead me to question its value. First, it states that the average amount of debt nationally is $29,400. However, in the chart showing states with the highest levels of debt, only six states are above this average.</p>
<p>Similarly, the figure for the percentage of graduates with debt nationally is listed as 71%. However, the list of states with the highest percentage shows only two with a percentage higher than this national average.</p>
<p>Finally, I am curious about the strawman “older folks” referred to in the concluding section that “tend to blame all the world’s ills on [millenials]”, citing only texting and rock music. My 80 year old mother is a prodigious texter and loved Elvis Presley as a teenager. How much older are the folks he refers to?</p>
<p>I wonder how many of these students are independents with bigger loans (also including dependents who qualify for bigger loans)? While I understand why these students can take out larger Direct Loans, it is risky. I see such students “thriled” that they can take out an additional $4k-5k per year on top of what other students can. But, in the end, unless they end up in a highly paid job upon graduation, they may end up in over their heads with debt as well. </p>
<p>I was wondering how a newish, youngish grad ended up with so much in federal loans. her parents didn’t qualify for Plus, she got the extra loan amounts, and she also got Perkins. The unsub loans grew. She has $50k in fed student loan debt…and she hasn’t paid one dime back even though she graduated a couple of years ago (with a degree in early child development.)</p>
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<p><a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/files/pub/classof2012.pdf[/url]”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/files/pub/classof2012.pdf</a> (page 10) lists some high debt public schools. It is not exactly a surprise that Pennsylvania public schools figure prominently in that list, given their high list prices and poor in state financial aid (try the net price calculator on Penn State for a middle or lower income Pennsylvania resident).</p>
<p>Most of the other public schools on that list do not seem to be “destination” schools that would attract a lot of out of state students.</p>
<p>Using [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com) to search for colleges with over $35,000 average student debt, the following come up:</p>
<p>63978 Full Sail University
51131 DeVry Miramar
50600 DeVry Seattle
50400 Luther Rice University
49928 California Institute of the Arts
49439 Wheelock College
49236 Anna Maria College
49157 DeVry Chicago
48515 Ringling College of Art and Design
47500 Digipen Institute of Technology
46726 Academy of Art University
46596 Corcoran College of Art and Design
45665 Daniel Webster College
45326 Regent University
45098 Delaware State University
44965 Rose Hulman Institute of Technology
44596 Becker College
44580 Bryant University
43650 Minneapolis College of Art and Design
43471 Marylhurst University
43189 Rivier College
42987 Trinity University (TX)
42878 College of St. Joseph
42779 Sacred Heart University
42730 Quinnipiac University
42631 Saint Anselm College</p>
<p>More schools you may have heard of on these forums:</p>
<p>40652 Ursinus College
38516 Texas Christian University
38150 Fordham University
37610 Case Western Reserve University
36150 Boston University
35297 Villanova University
35100 Penn State University Park</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>some of those are “for profit” schools, right?</p>
<p>63978 Full Sail University…scary especially when you conisder that’s the average…with some having more and some having less.</p>
<p>Yes, some of those in the list are for-profit schools, but not all of them.</p>
<p>Here are the high debt public schools from [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com) :</p>
<p>45098 Delaware State University
41672 Maine Maritime Academy
39623 Kentucky State University
39197 Texas Southern University
37834 Chicago State University
36390 Ferris State University
36086 Morgan State University
35810 University of Pittsburgh at Bradford
35229 Indiana University of Pennsylvania
35168 University of New Hampshire
35100 Penn State Abington, Altoona, Berks, Erie, Harrisburg, Shenango, and University Park
35090 University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
35027 Rowan University
34938 Michigan Technological University
34867 New Jersey Institute of Technology
34287 Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
34174 Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
34040 Coastal Carolina University
33889 The College of New Jersey
33875 Langston University
33662 University of Pittsburgh
33649 University of Delaware
33500 Temple University
33248 Keene State College
33209 Colorado School of Mines
33095 University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg
33038 Alabama A&M University
32880 College of Charleston
32652 Southern Illinois University Carbondale
32640 University of North Alabama
32576 Winona State University
32438 University of Maine
32400 Massachusetts Maritime Academy
32371 University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
32349 University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
32034 Albany State University</p>
<p>Some of the colleges with the highest debt have the highest percentages of African-American students (such as Del State, Kentucky State, Morgan State and Chicago State). On average, African-American families are often in a position where they are less able to save money prior to starting college, and have lower family incomes. </p>
<p>One interesting research article a few years ago declared Chicago State to be one of the worst universities in the US. Reportedly, some improvements have been made since that time.</p>
<p>The one that surprises me is Indiana U. of PA. That is a public university with an annual tuition of less than $9K. If you assume most of the students are receiving state grants and/or Pell grants, you wonder how so many could rack up $35K in debt. Part of the reason may lie in their large amount of expensive new semi-privatized student housing. Indiana is in a relatively isolated location, and also may have a low percentage of students who commute from their family’s home.</p>
<p>It is more understandable to see the main campus of U. Pitt as a high debt university. They have the second highest in-state tuition among public universities in the US (after Penn State), suffered big state budget cuts from Gov. Corbett in the last 3 years, and are 1/3 out of state students. For some programs, the in-state tuition rate at Pitt is over $20K a year.</p>
<p>U. Del is also understandable because they are 2/3rds out of state students, who have a tuition sticker price of $30K a year.</p>
<p>It appears that Pennsylvania public schools are quite poor with in state financial aid, resulting in them being well represented among the high student debt public schools.</p>
<p>Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s net price calculator gives for a Pennsylvania resident student in a family of 3 with income of $50,001-60,000 per year:</p>
<p>At parents’ house: $17,900 list price = net price after $0 grant aid
On or off campus: $23,500 list price = net price after $0 grant aid</p>
<p>In each case, there is estimated subsidized direct loans of $3,500, and “estimated other aid” of $6,000.</p>